


Can't Stop the Signal

by SailorSol



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, Haggada, Jewish Character, Jews In Space, Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1304941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His parents named him Gershom.</p>
<p>He was born in the wasteland of space, his parents fleeing the Core in the hopes of finding freedom, finding the Promised Land.</p>
<p>And so from a young age, Gershom has repeated the words, Sh’ma Israel: Adonai elohainu, adonai echad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Stop the Signal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [batyatoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyatoon/gifts).



> Thanks to H. for the beta and sanity check.

His parents named him Gershom.

He was born in the wasteland of space, his parents fleeing the Core in the hopes of finding freedom, finding the Promised Land.

Israel.

The name is nothing more than a story to him, no more real than Egypt or Earth-That-Was itself.

But his parents had named him Gershom, in the hopes that even if they would never cross that long-lost river, their child might.

And so from a young age, Gershom has repeated the words, _Sh’ma Israel: Adonai elohainu, adonai echad._

They are a prayer and a promise: _Hashata hacha, leshata ha’ba’a be’arha Israel; hashata avdei, leshata ha’ba’a bney chorin._ One year, one year - says the old promise - one year, it will be true.

In every generation a person is obligated to regard himself as if he had come out of Egypt in his own person. It doesn't matter if Egypt no longer exists, if Gershom isn't sure he believes in these stories. _Listen._

He remembers the Word, lives by the Word, because it is what his parents would want of him, even after they are dead and gone and he leaves behind the name they have given him.

He is not a prophet, nor is he the son of one; he will not lead the People out of the desert of space. He was born here, will wander here until the quarreling stops, until they are deemed worthy to return to the Promised Land, wherever that may now exist. The story is not the same, generation upon generation left to wander, but it is the story that must repeat itself in every one of them.

He builds himself a home and a life, where he can listen to everything, where he can take that and make sure the rest of the universe can hear the words as well. He is not a prophet, but he has come out of Egypt, like his parents and his parents’ parents, who never stepped foot on Earth-That-Was. The only way any of them will return to the Promised Land is if they remember, if the Desert Generation learns to let go of what God wants them to learn this time; perhaps it is the same lesson, the most important lesson, of faith.

The words themselves don’t matter, not if the meaning gets through, and that’s something the Alliance will never understand, no more than Pharaoh could, thousands upon thousands of years ago. With his dying breaths, he speaks one last time:

“Can’t stop the signal.”

_Echad._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Gershom: Ger-shom, Ger (stranger/immigrant), Shom = Sham (there). Exodus 18:3, "And [Tzipora, Moses' wife] gave him two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for [Moses] said, I have been a stranger in a strange land."
> 
> _Sh'ma Israel: Adonai elohainu, adonai echad_ : "Hark, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." Deuteronomy 6:4. This is the single most important article of prayer, repeated twice daily by Observant Jews. Said when death is expected by pretty much all Jews. Ideally, one gives one's last breath on "echad".
> 
> _Hashata hacha, leshata ha’ba’a be’arha Israel; hashata avdei, leshata ha’ba’a bney chorin._ : Aramaic, fromt he Haggada of Pesach. "This year [we are] here, next year [we'll be] at the Land of Israel; this year [we are] slaves, next year [we shall] be free."


End file.
